Before going away to Thailand I had about $5500 in shares in QBE and $750 in MXI (rough amounts) but something major happened in QBE so I decided to sell all the shares to be safe. Then after Thailand we bought the new camper trailer and cleared out most of the money.

I decided to make it fun I'd slowly rebuild the account so in May I bought 1000 PGC at $0.82 and see how they go at 12 weeks. They didn't go far and were not above the purchase price so I sold them at $0.80.

I'd been adding $100 per month in the 12 week period so was ready to buy something at $1.12 or up. Got 1000 shares in UPD at $1.16 and within 2 days of holding them they dropped dramatically down to $1.09. I checked the news and there was an announcement of a buyback and likely delisting due to private takeover. That seemed really risky so I sold at $1.09 as soon as I could. Lucky, as they dropped down to $1.02 and continues to drop.

At the same time I bought the next pick I had, PLG at $1.07. Hopefully there's a better result there (we'll see at the end of 12 weeks). Definitely looking forward to getting some higher value stocks a bit later on as they always seem to be a little less risky.

I'm not even sure what happened last time I wrote but here's a small financial thing I did a couple of weeks ago - dyed my hair successfully for the first time!

My hairdresser is great and much cheaper than hairdressing salons at $110 for a half head of foils. I always said that if I stopped going to her I'd dye it myself because generally what I get done is nothing magnificent really, just touching up my regrowth and a haircut.

So our security doors were getting installed at the same time as the hair appointment so I tried rescheduling however she didn't have anything for the next month so I got to try out my experiment! I watched some videos on YouTube and then went to a hair supplies shop and they worked out what I would need, the best colours and gave me instructions plus directions on how much of each.

All up it cost $106 however with their ratios I still had half a bowl of dye left over so I actually have enough hair dye left in the tubes for another two dyes! So instead of $110 for foils and haircut it was technically $33 for a tint (per use). I will go back to her in October however as the December appointment is at 6am I am thinking of cancelling that then and doing the tint then too.

I was listing the events that happened each week and keep getting my weeks mixed up, so that's all getting a bit hard! The point is I'm now back in the groove of writing weekly so I'll keep that up without listing each week's number.

Since I wrote last I've been to my post-operation appointment with the orthopaedic surgeon and he believes everything is healing in the way it should, which is great. I've been cleared to drive and resume normal activities within reason but must wear a sling in crowded places. Every day I'm healing a bit more. I'm now going to weekly physio appointments up until the final post-operation appointment at the start of September.

The good money things which have happened is we have found out that B's final car loan payment is next month! As previously agreed, I am going to take part of what we would pay each month and put it towards savings towards my new car. His payment is $742 per month - I would like to get a car for around $25000 in four years time, so worked out to do this would need $520 per month. Hopefully my car will last that long - the engine is pretty good but it is now 15 years old. Need to pick out and organise an internet account with a high interest rate soon 😊.

Now for the bad money things.. as well as having surgery which we had out of pocket costs for to the tune of roughly $3000, we last week decided to make two large purchases (the security doors for $3000 and the exhaust for the Harley for $1200). This would have been fine over a few months. But on Monday night the hot water service blew up. Grrr. That is $1500. Then a night or two later the dishwasher jammed up and it looks like it is a problem to do with the computer board in it... our savings are pretty much cleared out from the hot water service and exhaust so we are washing dishes by hand at the moment. A dishwasher is not a necessity and there has been so much money spent lately the thought of spending more is making me ill. This situation is looking kind of like the spa purchase last year where we repaid the credit card back over four months. Once I have final costs I will work out how much we need to repay per month.

All the same, even with the above expenses I am still determined to set up an account for the car and set up a monthly savings direct debit into it. The thing is, if you have a car loan you will always have to pay it monthly no matter what the situation is so I want us to be disciplined to save in the same way.